The Longest Night

This movie not only has some of the greatest stars before they were famous - David Janssen, Mike Ferrell, James Farentino, Sharon Gless, Phyllis Thaxter, Richard Andersen - but it is 98% accurate to the true story. The later "authorized" movie 83 Hours Til Dawn was focused more on the kidnapper than the victims, and was poorly done. Sallie Shockley did an excellent and believable job as the victim, and did not whine one bit. A great movie, and I hope it comes out on DVD at some point - I have only been able to find it on eBay as a recorded copy from television when it was first aired. Availability might be impaired by the copyright lawsuit filed and won by Gene Miller when it aired as an infringement of his book.

Great cast and performances headline this virtual biopic, economical at less than 75 mins head to tail which still produces the nail-biting tension the premise promises to deliver. Director Jack Smight made a similar telemovie "The Screaming Woman" around the same time which I'd also recommend. Farentino is the standout here, and his partner in crime played by Skye Aubrey is also pretty convincing as the well-prepared kidnappers attempting to extort half a million from wealthy businessman (Janssen) for the safe return of his adult daughter whose trapped beneath the ground in a purpose built tomb with limited resources to survive. Smight keeps a lid on anything hysterical, a highly process-driven police response led by an ultra-conservative FBI team which includes Mike Farrell as the principal agent, whilst John Kerr and Jason Bernard (uncredited) are prominent and equally stony-faced in support. Overall this was an engaging and taut telemovie, no-nonsense with a very solid cast and safe-hands approach, worthy of a viewing.

I will never get bored watching American TV movies from the seventies. Plus, this one is directed by Jack Smight, the maker of HARPER. It is inspired from actual events. It is shocking, creepy, even today, in 2023, so imagine in 1972. And in the mean time, we have seen so many stories like this, for big and Tv industry - OXYGEN (1999) for instance among many others: a kidnapper "hides" his or her victim underground before asking for ransom. It is tense, gritty, riveting, excellent, and David Janssen - in the seventies he was at his very best, the over the top of actors for the TV industry - is leading the whole show. I highly recommend it.

"The Longest Night" is the type of film I feel you really can't write too much about… You can't state that the script is implausible, grotesque or too far-fetched, because it's based on a true story and allegedly sticks very close to the facts. You can't write too much about the production values, neither, as it's a made- for-TV film from the early seventies without much action or spectacle. It's a more than competent effort, especially in terms of acting performances and direction, and mainly thrives on oppressed tension and family drama. Without using excessive violence, a carefully prepared couple abducts the young daughter of a wealthy businessman and leaves the mother tied up and petrified in a motel room. Instead of locking her up in a basement or isolated cabin somewhere, the kidnappers bury Karen in a meticulously constructed hole in the ground that only provides air, supplies and lighting for a period of five days maximum. Their fiendish plan includes that the girl will in case the ransom demands aren't met in time, or in case they are apprehended or shot by the police first. Unquestionably, the whole dramatic and shocking impact of the film (as well as the news bulletins around the original true crime case) emerges from these miserable conditions the poor girl has to survive in for four long days and nights. We witness Karen's honest and understandably terrified reaction when she's brought to her "grave" by her kidnapper, and during several interludes throughout the film we return to this place only to see how she hears ominous noises, suffers from panic attacks and loses her hope to make it out alive. Meanwhile, her father and the authorities move heaven and earth to confront the kidnapper, but this is less interesting to see, as it's more familiar subject matter. "The Longest Night" is effective and successful because you notice yourself constantly repeating things in your head like: "Oh, that poor girl" and you sincerely hope that her father – or anyone else for that matter – finds her in time. Otherwise it's a rather anonymous TV-movie, certainly not on par with some of the other classics that ABC released in that same era, and only worth tracking down in case you're a fan of any of the cast members (David Janssen, James Farentino, Phyllis Thaxter) or – like me – director Jack Smight ("Damnation Alley", "Airport 1975", "The Travelling Executioner"…). Little fun fact, "The Longest Night" is of course a very serious and emotionally heave retelling of the true crime case, but a wildly fictionalized version the same story also got turned into a rancid exploitation flick called "The Candy Snatchers".

I remembered seeing this movie on UK television a couple of times when I was very young back in the 1970s and since then it has vanished without trace.

Only in recent years, with the memory of a kidnapped girl being kept in an underground coffin refusing to go away did I search on the internet and manage to identify this film and at last I've got hold of a copy and been able to see it again after all these years.

I was surprised how many well-known actors are in it and the fact that this adventure is based on a real-life incident will always give it that extra 'edge'. However, I found it very pedestrian watching it in 2007. The scenes unfold in a very matter-of-fact manner and yes, there's a certain tension because an innocent girl's life is at stake, but that aside I found it almost uninvolving at times. There's really not much effort made to really get inside any of the characters. We don't get to know any of the chambers family before the kidnap takes place on screen (the very first scene) so the impact of this shattering intrusion on their everyday lives is lessened.

David Janssen goes through a lot of worrying as the father but at no point during the film is he ever seen with his daughter, so its harder for us to see how greatly he's affected by all this - we never witness what his normal routine was like, what kind of a character he normally is, what kind of a change he goes through. Maybe he's always worried? Without much depth to the characters its hard for the actors to make much of their roles - there's a feeling that everybody is just going through the motions.

Nevertheless, the opening scene when Mrs Chambers is tied up and the daughter forcibly taken away is still dramatic and I'm not surprised it stuck in my memory for 30 years.

Overall - it's interesting to watch, but its really a straight re-telling of the facts rather than a carefully-crafted drama. It would be done a lot better nowadays, I'm sure.